Lost strangers

Alrighty then, just as I was a recalling how I got this here RV-Dreamers bug,  I got interrupted again. The fellar parked next door come over for a spell and afore I knowed it, it was to late to blog any more, so I just posted what I'd got done earlier in the day, even if that was a few days ago. :)

In a way, that life back up on the Gulch had its good points. Like when you always knowed which day of the month everybody was a coming in to get their gas. We tried to keep it down to one customer a day, but sometimes someone forgot, or the Preacher would stop by, or some other unusual event happened, but that just made for a little excitement. :)

So here I was, confronted by this house, heck, it were a mansion on wheels, and this city fellar gets out, hair all so perfect it almost looked like he'd shaved it off, dark glasses on and lawdy, lawdy, the gawd awfullest looking pair of knee high britches I ever seed in my life. Geesh.  :)

He's a lookin' at a map, which by the way weren't going to do him one bit of good, mostly because it was a map of Stonemason County, which was two county's over, but from the looks of him, he weren't gonna let the likes of me tell him anything, so I just kept my mouth shut, figuring he'd open his when the time come. :)

He and the cute woman :):) was a talkin' and a pointin', all of which was taking time, but gittin' nuthin' done. I was puzzled as to why they just didn't use those little phone things they was both holdin' on to, to call and ask Pricilla Anne at the phone company to send over one of the local kids to lead them out.

When my curiosity couldn't be contained no more, I asked them why they didn't do just that. All of which got the man to jest laughing and laughing, saying , "It's not a telephone, it's a walky talky. Sheesh." That had me puzzled cause while them two was certainly a talking, they sure didn't look like they were about to start walkin' anywhere. :) Turns out they was a using those talk and walk things to "communicate" while they was driving down the road.

Speakin' a little out of line, I busted out with something about that being a right smart thing to do, and with one thing leading to another, that's how I found out that he'd also once been into workin' with numbers, and he'd also gotten one of those fancy certificates to hang on the wall, sorta like the Judge gave me those many years back. :)

Helping Our Readers

Nilda come back from the beauty parlor today, all so excited I thought she was going to bust another bust button or two like she did last week when that checkout clerk at Ramey’s Bait, Tackle and Beauty Supply commented on Nilda’s new necklace she was a wearing. The one I found layin’ by the pump when I was getting’ grease cartridges at the Gas N Go, and then remembered to give to Nilda for Valentines Day.

Seems like when those beauty parlor ladies get into their usual gabfest now, they always meander a mite before they return to their favorite subject, me and Nilda’s blog. Sure, they do enjoy the goin’s on in our road life that I’m always puttin’ out there for the whole world to read, but it also appears the circle of readers is expanding

One of the ladies, Nilda says it’s the teachers wife, the one with the red hair that ain’t no more red than a blue bellied whale, which by the way, she resembles in more ways than one. Anyway, it turns out that teacher’s wife told her son-in-law about this here blog, and he, bragging about how he knew some famous writer, showed my writing efforts to one of his bowling buddies, whose Pa is thinking of retiring and taking up the kind of life Nilda and me lives.

Alrighty then, it turns out that the son-in-law’s Pa liked what he read so much that he told a bunch of his own friends and they has also taken up following our adventure, which may explain why I been getting so many emails asking for Tomato Blossom’s :):):) whereabouts, of which I don’t have the foggiest notion.

Where all this is a leadin’ to is the fact that while they sure do enjoy reading about our daily adventures, they’d also like to read some information about how we decided to “buy”, (using their word as it was told me, not mine), Ol’ 5th Wheel. Or how we decided where we should domicile, whatever that is

Then there was this one, how’d we know that this life was right for us, which makes me wonder what kind of life they is a’living. Sheesh. One of them didn’t understand what full timing in a mobile, mobile home was and could I explain it to him. All this got me thinking that maybe there was a need for more information on this here lifestyle thing we live, and that providing that would get even more people to read this here blog, making me more popular than ever.

Why I heard tell that some of them real popular internet places, like amazon, google, girls galore, bustin’ busts, and the like can have as many as a hundred or more visitors in a day. I don’t know if I can ever reach that many visitors in a day, but if I could get half that number, or even thirty or so, it sure would give Nilda something to talk about on her weekly visits to the beauty parlor.

So in the near future, if I can ever figure out how to do it, you might see some new pages appearing alongside these regular blog articles I been a writing. Heck, if it works out the way it might, I could even be given Nilda a page or two of her own where she could put up some of her favorite recipes you have been reading about on my blog.

Lordy, lordy, she might even be able to supplement our income, such as it is, what with all them constant repair bills depleting it almost as fast as it comes in, by trying her hand at that beadin’ stuff she learned working at Betty’s Best Beads, or whatever it was called. Guess you could say this full time thing is an adventure in more ways than one.

Gettin' the RV Dreamers bug

Back in that first blog post, boy but I sure didn't know much about this blogging thing back then, I said I'd started life with gleam and a dream, and those were things I'd always had. Well, the dream was always there, but before Tomato Blossom :):):) came into my life, that gleam thing was just a laying there, not being used for its intended purpose. :(

Alrighty then, it looks like I am a wandering instead of blogging about this RV thing again, but maybe that's just what Dreamers do. They wander around until they stumble upon what ever it was they didn't know they had been lookin' for. :) And that was exactly what I was not a lookin' for when the RV Dreamers bug bit me.

It was a Saturday morning in April, right about 10:22 on the morning of the 23rd, close as I can recall. There I was, a sittin' in my office at Pa's filling station when I heard the gawd awfullest racket you could ever imagine. It was a wheezing and a carrying on about like a bull that'd just went through a whole field of heifers all by his lonesome. Geesh. Now we ain't stupid up here, since on occasion one of those down river boys in their big fancied up pick'em up trucks will wander in here more lost than a tick in an anthill. :)

This here truck weren't near as tricked up those, in fact it was about to the place where if it had anything else a hanging on it it probably would a died on the spot. Covered with dirt the way it was, I couldn't even tell it was actually some ugly brown color, worse than the dirt a coverin' it, until it got closer, and that was when I see's why it was a huffin' and a puffin'. :)

Behind it was the biggest gall darnd house I, or most anybody in the these parts had seen in ages. It went up, up up in the front, till it towered over the tops of Granny Garfields lilac bushes. And let me tell you, she grew the prize winner lilacs every year at the Squattersville Combined Squirrel Cookoff and Flower Show. It had windows and doors all over the place, and a leaky roof. I couldn't believe how many patches they had up top, some of them holes must have been right sizeable cause there was a big old chunk of metal sticking up in the air and a covering them. :)

Course nowadays that I gots my own RV, I know what those things are, what for letting the smoke out from the stove and airing the outhouse, but back then I didn't. Geesh. But them two things wasn't all, cause ahind them comes this part car, part something else, driven by the cutest little dab of a woman, this side of Coal Creek. :):)

Since we weren't busy at the station, it was the first Saturday of the month after all and Barney Billingsley only ever gets his usual three gallons of gasoline on the second Saturday of the month, not the first Saturday, I figured I had time if, whoever they was, they decided they wanted to chew the fat for a mite. :)

Gettin' my Degree

Sorry I got off the track yesterday about getting the job that eventually allowed Nilda and me to live the RV Dreamers life. Alrighty then, once the jailer came back and see'd how good with numbers I was, he just took me under his wing, and before I knew it, I was learning things that I wasn't sure I would ever have any use for. By the time my time was up, they didn't want me to leave so I just stayed on for a while longer, helping everyone at the courthouse out with their number problems. Seems somebody down in Frankfort was making noise about county corruption, and the wanted to make sure all the books were in order.

At last I finally had to go back up to the Gulch. Ma was expecting for the 19th time, and what with Pa's wart on his little toe a bothering him again, he couldn't do no more than lay abed himself. What surprised me was how all choked up everybody around the courthouse got when I told them how Ma and Pa was suffering, each in their own way. Sheesh. :)

Alrighty then, before I was allowed to leave, the Judge, who was that man who gave me the chance to get my degree those many months ago, he ups and has a big get together, of which it turned out I was the guest of honor. I sure wished Pa could of been there for that, I'll bet it would have made up for that day when he screamed at me and Tomato Blossom that I had brought great dishonor and pain to the name of Vayne.

I was a smiling so hard at what the Judge was saying, plus with Tammy Jo, all 400 pounds of her, between me and the Judge and her wheezing and all, it was hard to hear exactly what the Judge said. But folks said even though the Judge was all blubbery, it was something about the fact that it was hereby certified and noted that all the public thereabouts should know that I.M. Vayne, and not only that, but that they should know that the Judge considered the same I.M. Vayne to be the best darned accountant in all of the County.

When the Judge finished, Tammy Jo throwed her arms around me, then just as the Judge handed me a piece of paper with his proclamation all printed out on it, Tammy Jo began bawling like a calf that had lost its mama. First thing I know all them tears from Tammy Jo is causing the the ink to run on the most important paper I had ever gotten in my life, and to this day the only words anyone can make out are: --- awarded this day  ---  certified -- Public  -- accountant   -- I.M. Vayne  ---  signed --- official of ---  Kentucky.

A Typical Day for Nilda and Me

Now I’m sure you’re a wondering what life is like out here on the road for Nilda and me. First off, since we’re usually broke down and staying in some RV park or repair place,  it may not be exactly on the road, but it is usually near the road.  But just to let you have an eyeful of our life, here is what happened today.

First off, Nilda sent me out to make sure the truck had enough fuel in it to get her to the beauty parlor and back tomorrow, reminding me to pick up some of those sticky cinnamon rolls at the bakery, since we was out and she wasn’t baking again for a few days. :)

By the time I got back, she had all the latest in local gossip and proceeded to fill me in on the trials and tribulations (another of Pa’s sayings) of those around us. Our three down and two over neighbors had themselves a big old 5th wheel with lots of extras, which was what made for the best gossip of the morning according to Nilda’s sources. :)

That fancy couple had themselves a real, brand spanking new coffee pot. Not one like ours where the water goes in on top of the mother grounds, followed by some new grounds, and a little later you got the best coffee you ever tasted. No sir, they got one of those new fangled, humdinger machines where the coffee is in some kind of little baggy and the whole machine looks like something that Captain Video would have thrown away.

As Nilda understood it, the injectors, whatever they was for, wasn’t injecting, and all that machine was good for was a paper weight. All the ladies had a good laugh while those fancy people yakked on the phone with someone who apparently knew less about getting it to work than they did. Guess they never did get their coffee, but we all sure did enjoy ours as well as those sticky rolls I brung back.

Most of the day we just set outside, a jawing with the neighbors, and enjoying the bay which is directly behind where we are broke down, though Nilda prefers to tell all the new neighbors that we like here so much, we are staying  for an extended time. Which I guess is a way of looking at it, even though it leaves a little out.

Well we was a sittin’ out sunnin’ ourselves, when one of the new fellars parked up the way stops by and asks about our 5th wheel. Well one thing leads to another and then I’m hearing him ask if we would enjoy a grilled lobster dinner. Now that is something we never had up on the Gulch, but since we got down here by the ocean, we’ve both become right partial to them overgrown crawdads. :)

Alrighty then, the next I know that fellar is sayin’ he’d supply the lobsters just cause he enjoyed me telling my stories of life up in the Gulch and here on the road, though he was particular fond of some of Pa’s tales I related to him. He says, just bring a little something like a salad or dessert and we’d have a good time. Nilda immediately got to whipping up one of her turnip greens, chokeberry and peanut salads with some Velveeta chunks on top. Food just doesn’t get better than that, and them lobsters weren’t half bad either.

After dinner that fellar would have liked to have talked my leg off, and if it hadn’t been for Nilda and his wife fallin’ asleep and snoring so loud he couldn’t even hear himself, he’d probably still be going at it. Thank goodness the neighbor’s dog on the other side started a bayin’ away, which caused the ladies to wake up, and gave us an excuse to head back to our 5th wheel.

That’s what’s so great about living like this,  sometimes you get to eat free without even asking. I told him that we’d have to return the favor, but knowing he was going to be a leaving in the morning, it was just to make him feel good. But you know what I love best about this RV life? You never know when you’re going to make a new friend who will enrich your life by saving you a few bucks. :)

Me and Tammy Jo

Alrighty then, it was Tammy Jo Jamison that really got me to get my degree, not that Tammy Jo was anybody special. But what she did have was a older brother, Jimmy Jack Jamison, who had gotten a degree, and that was the only reason why I was always trying to get her to dance with me at the church socials and such. Which wasn't really all that hard, all the boys being just a bit shy whenever Tammy Jo was around. I figured if I could sweet talked Tammy Jo enough, she just might tell me how Jimmy Jack got his degree. :)

Turned out that to get a degree you had go far down below the Gulch, even past Coon Hollow, then travel the Tartliffe Road till it came out near Simpsonville, which was the county seat. It was there, in Simpsonville, that you could get a degree. Once I learned all this, I waited till the time was right and lit out for the big city of Simpsonville. :)

It was dark by the time I got to Simpsonville, but by trying to do just exactly what Tammy Jo had told me Jimmy Jack had told her to tell me to do, I ended up standing before a very official looking man the next morning. I tried to explain to him what Tammy Jo had told me Jimmy Jack had told her to tell me about getting a degree, but he wasn't having any of it. Sheesh. 

In the end it still turned out okay, and even though I didn't get the degree I wanted, the one I ended up with was just as good. Besides that, it took only 30 days to get the degree I got rather than the two years it took Tammy Jo's brother, Jimmy Jack, to get his. :)

I will admit I was heartbroken when the man first said it was just going to be 30 days for me because I'd only gotten a 3rd degree misdemeanor rather than a second degree felony like Tammy Jo's bother got. Turned out however, to be the best thing that ever happened to me, since the head jailer took sick, and his assistant couldn't keep track of how many days anybody had left to serve. :)

I'd always been good with numbers and that was why I got the job of second assistant, jailed jailer. The Sheriff was joking about it being an inside job. Sheesh. But I thought I'd earned it. Course it didn't hurt that most all of Tammy Jo's male relatives had stayed there at one time or another, and through them she'd put in a word or two for me. :)

Gettin' ahead in life

Alrighty then, bout a month ago Nilda and me was down at the Hopkinson Family Reunion, her being a Hopkinson by way of her sixth oldest sister's second husband's step mother. Anyway, some  of the boys was wondering where Nilda and I had been since we had missed the Worthington reunion a few weeks back, me being a Worthington, through someone on great grandma Featheringham's side of the family.  :)

Were they ever surprised to learn that we had been traipsin' around the country enjoying the retirement life cause of the fruits of my labors due to my degree I had got years ago. Most of them boys don't have a clue about how to get ahead in life and make some real money. Maybe this is a good time to tell you what I told them about how I got ahead in life. :)

First I ever heard about these "degrees" and how they could get you ahead in life was when my sister Maybelle, that's my younger sister Maybelle, not my older sister Mabel, brought her friend, Tomato Blossom Parks  :):):) back with her at Christmas many years ago. It turned out that Tomato Blossom's :):):) parents where some sort of hippies, and since Tomato Blossom :):):) wasn't following the path they had set out for her in life, she was going to be all alone come the Holidays, so Maybelle brung her along to the Gulch.

It was from Tomato Blossom :):):) that I learned about degrees and that people can actually get paid for reading and writing a bunch of "whereas's" and "parties of the first parts", and on and on. I also learned that not everyone can add numbers and make them come out like they are supposed to. Sheesh. Or at least have them come out like the feller paying the bill wants them to come out.

Alrighty then, it was a real eye opener for me, discovering that people can get paid for just putting words and numbers down on paper, rather that actually having to do anything. I decided right then and there that I was going to get me one of those degrees Tomato Blossom :):):) was talking about and live a life of ease.

Before Tomato Blossom :):):) went back to the big city, she also got around to teaching me a few other things that I wasn't quite up to speed on, though lord only knows why not. Alrighty then, Tomato Blossom :):):) was a leading me through my lessons, urging me on, when I guess I got a might too into what was going on and started a bellarin' and a carryin' on. Course it didn't help that at the same time, Tomato Blossom  :):):) was a puffing and a gruntin' like a steam engine going up Henderson Mountain.

Let's just say that by the time things calmed back down, Maybelle was banned from bringing any more of her big city friends back with her, :(:(:( and something other than a degree was on my mind every time I got close to a girl for a long time after that. Sheesh.  :)